Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost’s Rise to Become Pope Leo XIV

American-born Robert Francis Prevost, the cardinal who was elected pope on Thursday, overcame what many saw as long-shot odds for the papacy.

Here’s a brief timeline for the Roman Catholic Church leader now known as Pope Leo XIV.

1955

He receives a doctoral degree from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, and the following year, he joins a mission in Trujillo, Peru.